


Flock Together

by sElkieNight60



Series: Sacrament [1]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, Batman: Under the Red Hood (2010), DCU, DCU (Comics), Red Robin (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Angels & Demons, Angels, Enemy to Caretaker, Fallen Angels, Gen, Hurt Tim Drake, Hurt/Comfort, Nephilim, Non-Sexual Submission, Pack Dynamics, Se.N, Supernatural Elements, Tim's Abysmal Lack of Self-Preservation, Titans Tower au, Whump, Wingfic, angel au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-01
Updated: 2021-03-01
Packaged: 2021-03-13 15:55:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29778558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sElkieNight60/pseuds/sElkieNight60
Summary: The steel toed boot to his mid-section wasn't remotely a surprise, but it fucking hurt.“Thought you could just swoop in and replace me did you, baby bird?” Jason drawled, venom behind his mockery of humor.Tim is a lone angel hatchling without a bond. He's trapped with an angel raised from the dead and hell-bent on vengeance.
Relationships: Tim Drake & Jason Todd
Series: Sacrament [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2188635
Comments: 29
Kudos: 278
Collections: Red Hood vs Red Robin





	Flock Together

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [hunted](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27338821) by [envysparkler](https://archiveofourown.org/users/envysparkler/pseuds/envysparkler). 



> This is a Titans Tower AU based in a larger universe of Angel AU fics I have the intention to write. This one seemed the easiest to start with and is heavily inspired by EnvySparkler's "Hunted" because I thoroughly enjoyed the pack dynamics going on in that fic.
> 
> Also, don't know if you can tell, but I've seen 14/15 seasons of Supernatural ;)
> 
> Enjoy!

After that last kick, there was definitely a bruised vertebrae somewhere, Tim was sure of it. Jason, with strength that was unnatural and decidedly _not human_ had flung him across the room and he had slammed into the wall and dropped like a sack of bricks.

The angel's boots echoed loudly on the marble flooring as he weaved his way through the statues and columns of fallen cherubim and seraphim, nestlings, hatchlings and fledglings alike. All the angels that had ever died in or out of the line of duty. They were all here. Great heroes like Donna, Guardian of the people of Troy, the first and only member of Diana's flock to perish, who had been barely more than a nestling when she'd died.

The steel toed boot to his mid-section wasn't remotely a surprise, but it _fucking hurt._

“Thought you could just _swoop in_ and replace me did you, baby bird?” Jason drawled, venom behind his mockery of humor. He sneered, the expression promising violence as he kicked Tim again, hard enough to roll him over this time.

Tim gasped for air like a fish caught upon sand. The moisture on his cheeks flowed freely down to the marble floor below him. It was easy to recognize in that moment that he was going to die here, in this hall for fallen fledglings. In this memorial for all the nephilim lost.

It felt full circle in a way that Tim would die here of all places and at the hands of the hatchling Bruce had lost.

Jason's steel boot landed on his ribs and Tim heard, rather than felt the initial crunch. It vibrated throughout his body. For all that Bruce claimed he had the tiniest amount of grace growing inside him, Tim had never believed it. And right now, he felt more decidedly human than he ever had before.

The shoe broke his nose next. Tim screamed into the empty hall, the noise echoing the entire way. He sobbed, a broken, pathetic noise. Blood dripped from his nose and ran all the way down his neck until it plopped off onto the floor.

“You saw a place for you to worm your way into and you took it, didn't you?” Jason continued to smirk as he spoke. There was no hint of the pure soul to which the grace had initially stuck, whatever had caused Jason to live again― _and Tim hadn't even known angels could come back to life_ _―_ had seemingly wiped all traces of the good person he had been before.

“ _B_ _lease_ ,” Tim blubbered through his own blood and tears. “Jaysob, I dibn't―”

“Save your pathetic excuses,” Jason snarled, arcing his kick wide before bringing in with a loud and sickening crunch to Tim's right side.

Tim screamed again, but it was faint from a lack of air and he was already blind with pain. Jason grinned above him, a sickening parody of a smile from the boy who had once helped so many.

The words stuttered out of him, barely louder than a whisper against the polished floor.

“ _I―I dibn't… I dibn't take your blase,”_ he cried softly. _“I'm not even a member of Bruce's flock.”_

“Lies!” Jason hissed.

Tim braced for another blow. This time he didn't even scream. The pain was wordless, noiseless, up until the point he could suck in a lungful of air. The small sobs and choked off mewling sounds of fear and pain and distress barely made any sound at all as they passed across his lips, though the wracked his broken body.

He wasn't lying. Tim didn't have wings. _Lord,_ Tim didn't even had a _bond._ There just wasn't enough grace inside him to _form_ one. Dick had tried with him. For hours. He'd taught Tim how meditate and how to reach inside himself and find that budding, swirling bit of grace. Yet, despite all his efforts, Tim had never been able to form a bond.

Tim was a baby hatchling without a flock. It was a miracle his grace was there at all. At any given second it could just die and he would plummet to the earth, no longer allowed in heaven's halls because he wasn't an angel, he was just a desperate human who'd spent enough time around real angels to pick up the tiniest amount of grace.

The heel to his gut definitely made him black out for at least a few seconds and when he came to, dots danced across his vision and the hall around him span violently.

Tim felt for something, for anything inside of him; he was desperate. Hatchlings weren't meant to be on their own. It was unnatural. _Tim_ was unnatural. Angels were supposed to form bonds, to be a part of a flock.

Into the dark void where his bond should have been, he screamed for help. For someone, for _anyone_ to help him. It was like fumbling around in darkness, there was nothing there.

Then, suddenly, there was.

It wasn't much, but it was there. A faint light, in the distance. It was like a tiny sun. Tim stumbled toward the light, running for it as fast as his legs would take him.

At first, he didn't register what it was. It was tiny and it was warm, but it was hurting too, just like Tim was. It was wounded. It was another small angel, another nephilim on their own. Together they'd hardly do anything for each other, but it was still better than being alone and Tim really didn't want to be alone when he died. Maybe that was selfish. Maybe it was selfish to cling to another angel, to make them feel his last moments, but at least someone would know he had _lived_.

Just like Dick taught him, he wrapped his hands around the tiny speck of grace, but at the same time he felt like he _knew_ what he needed to do. The light grace was warm, a throbbing little heart-beat suddenly beating in time with his own.

Without warning, the darkness around him exploded into light and where the grace had been, now two hands were wrapped protectively around his own.

Tim looked up into the eyes of the other angel only to find Jason staring back, horrified and surprised and scared and shocked and _afraid._

“What the fuck?” said both versions of Jason. The grace that Tim could more feel than hear, and the visible Jason leering over him.

If nothing else, at least Jason could see he wasn't lying. Inside Tim's own beating grace there lay only one bond and it was now directly tied to Jason himself.

“What the _fuck_?” said Jason for a second time, more emphatic and insistent now. “Why would you―”

Tim grinned up at him, the blood around his nose crusty now. He was sure it didn't make a pretty sight.

“See,” he said. “Not lying.”

Jason's grace was larger than him. In every way. Tim dropped to his knees in deference. Jason could take what he really sought―revenge. Tim wasn't about to stop him. It would be easy for Jason to simply crush his grace between his hands, to snuff out Tim's light like a candle.

The older angel huffed out a hysterical laugh and ran a hand through his crop of hair.

“You're insane,” he said, but the confusion and horror was still flooding their line and the words themselves had no heat in them.

_Flock?_ Muttered Jason's grace quietly, not quite an audible thing as the grace circled him like a lion around its prey. _Family? Flock? Protect?_

And Tim stayed down and bowed his head. If Jason wanted his life, he could take it.

Grace seized his own and Tim did not even struggle as what felt like two hands wrapped around his neck and began to squeeze, even to the muttered tune of _family? flock? protect?_ on repeat.

Suddenly, the hands came away.

Tim could breathe.

Jason had him by the hair. _“Look at me,”_ his grace spoke and it was feral sound, not human at all. There was nothing but instinct and need. And with a pathetic little whimper, Tim obeyed. _“You're mine. You belong to me. Flock. Family. Mine.”_

Tim just nodded. Of course. And internally, his own grace agreed. This was how flocks worked. There was hierarchy, with the Genesis Angel at the top and the hatchlings at the bottom. Jason wasn't a Genesis Angel. Heck, he wasn't even a fledgling yet, he was just a scared little nestling pretending to be something else, but Tim was okay with that _because at least he wasn't alone anymore._

Through their new found bond though, he could feel Jason panicking in quiet.

“Shit, _fuck,”_ he swore, dropping to his knees as his grace screamed out for help because _he wasn't equipped to take care of a hatchling, he couldn't even take care of himself!_ “Fuck. Tim. Hold on, okay. Oh my god, I did this. I _did_ this.”

Jason's hands fluttered uselessly over Tim's broken body, but their connection was growing with every passing second. What had probably started out as a dull throb of pain was now likely growing into something much stronger.

The nestling was lost and panicking and trying not to show it, but Tim could see. It was fine, though. Jason would protect him. Jason was _flock_ now. _Flock, family, home, flock, family, belong,_ Tim's own grace thrummed happily, if somewhat weakly.

Into his arms, Jason pulled Tim up onto his lap and wrapped his wings around them both, as short and little as they were. Tim winced and gasped in pain as he was jostled and Jason apologized like a man possessed. They tumbled from his lips over and over in his frantic panic.

From where Tim's grace sat at Jason's feet, he could see the other boy's grace doing the equivalent of pacing while terror wracked his body.

_I don't know what to do!_ The largest part of him screamed.

Beyond Jason's grace though, Tim could see what looked to be lengths of grey rope, each one appearing as though it had been hacked off bluntly.

_What are those?_ He asked, pointing. Jason whirled around, but didn't make a move to touch the lengths of rope.

“There's nothing there,” he said out loud, wings ruffling above their heads.

Slowly, Tim rose from his place of deference and wandered over to the lengths of rope. He pulled on the biggest. It followed him obediently.

It was only when Tim finally pressed the rope into Jason's hand that he realised―the other nestling _really couldn't see them._ It was like they'd been invisible to him.

“What… is this?” Jason asked out loud once again. Tim watched his grace grip the rope tightly and then glanced at their own length of rope, silver and knotted around both of their waists.

“I think it's a broken bond,” he replied in a raspy, painful whisper.

Jason looked at him, startled. Then he looked back down at the grey, frayed length of rope in his hand and sucked in a shaky breath before closing his eyes and _squeezing._

To Tim, it was almost blinding to see the bond light up. It was _enormous._ Much larger than the thing he and Jason now had, which was barely thicker than a thread. This bond could moor freight-ships.

Barely two seconds later, the light surrounded them both. Jason freaked and stepped backwards, but the bond was now knotted to him at the waist and suddenly―Bruce was right there, standing in front of them.

Another of Jason's bonds lit up and fluttered down towards his link with Tim. Despite having never seen this angel's grace before, from the get-go, Tim knew it was Dick. The fledgling, _his brother,_ held Tim's grace in his hands and it was like being held by a tiny sun while an even brighter sun clung to them all.

Bruce was too hot and too bright and Tim could quite plainly see how badly Jason wanted to curl up into a little ball and hide.

_Stop!_ He cried, hoping Bruce would hear him. _You're too much!_

The light around them seemed to briefly ponder this before toning the heat down and Jason nearly sobbed with relief. Without really being sure what was really happening, Tim suddenly felt like he was being scooped up into a palm and studiously scrutinized.

“What happened?” Bruce asked, not unkindly.

Tim could make his mouth move, too in awe and too in pain to do much else.

Jason on the other hand _sobbed._ Bruce just held him tighter, wordless in his reassurances.

_It's going to be fine Jay,_ he communicated along their bond. _We're coming. It's going to be okay, you're going to be okay._

“I fucked up, B,” he sobbed out loud, something which only Tim could hear.

“S'okay,” Tim smiled up at him. “Flock now. Not alone. We're going to be okay.”

Jason didn't look reassured. “I _hurt_ you,” he said. “Why would you want to be part of my flock? You _shouldn't want that!”_

Tim reached for the hand resting upon his stomach.

“Never had a bond before, Jay,” he answered sincerely. “Never been able to make one before you.”

Jason paused. “That's not a good reason,” he replied quietly.

Tim didn't shrug outwardly, but Jason could see his grace make the movement anyway.

“We're family. We're flock. We're birds of a feather, we should stick together.”

Jason pondered that a moment. Then: “I'm… I'm sorry I.” He stopped.

“I know,” he wheezed back through his cracked ribs. Through their connection, Tim could feel a flare of protectiveness, a kernel of fear and _hatchling, hurt, protect, protect, protect._ “Me too.”

They were still messy, they were still hurt. But if nothing else, Tim could now feel in the very deepest parts of himself with an utmost surety that, despite anything else that might happen, Jason would never stop being his protector and Tim would never stop being a part of his flock.


End file.
